Significance of Arab prayer/chant during film's close with Kinderman and

That prayer/chant opens the film and closes it for reasons mentioned in another thread.

It makes the film more powerful to recognize both these major religions, and by doing it this way the film actually catches the attention of that region of the world and engages their spirituality as well. The supernatural occurrences and the evil depicted feels so much realer for a number of reasons; the decision to include the Islam Holy prayer is one of them.


Also: Isn't William Peter Blatty himself an Arab raised by Catholic parents or something like that?





I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way

It's the Muslim call to prayer. It also appeared in the beginning titles, before merrin passed many worshippers praying in iraq.

The opening scenes imply that the demon is of Middle Eastern origins, or at rather an entity worshipped by pre-Christian/pre-Islamic people in the Middle East. Merrin was made aware of its presence during his archeological dig at a Sumerian/Babylonian site in Iraq.

The closing Muslim call to prayer was just a reminder of its Middle Eastern origins as the story came full circle with Merrin's death and the exorcising of the demon.

In the audio commentary,Friedkin said something like "It's to show that the only solution is faith and God to fight evil".